


pucker up for heaven's sake (there's never been so much at stake)

by blondecrowns



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Missing Scene, Smut, emma and killian wrapped up in their own thoughts and each other, manhattan era, mostly just internal monologuing, split POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 08:44:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5961199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blondecrowns/pseuds/blondecrowns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>canon-divergent/missing scene from s3. Emma's exhausted; tired of the lies, of lying to herself, so she latches onto the one truth she has left: she wants to bang the hot stranger - the crazy guy that turned up on her doorstop a few days ago, claiming to know her and her (non-existent) parents. The only thing is, if Emma gives into her truth, she may just find herself wanting to get to know him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pucker up for heaven's sake (there's never been so much at stake)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [letterfromathief (sentbyfools)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=letterfromathief+%28sentbyfools%29).



> \---carve your name into my arm,  
> \---instead of stressed, i lie here charmed.

Glass meets wood, a sharp rap that doesn’t so much as punctuate the splintering of her tumbler as it does something infinitely more vulnerable, dangerous:

Her resolve, as she says “You wanna get out of here?” to the man sitting across from her.

It’s not the first time she’s said those words – or heard them aloud, for that matter, asked of her rather than her doing the asking – but it is the first time they’ve been accompanied by the outstretch of her hand and a nervous edge in her voice that she’ll undoubtedly regret later.

There are a lot of things she’s going to regret later, beginning with bringing a man she’s known for all of three days to a bar on the corner of 37th and 5th, and ending with her poor form to lie to herself, to pretend like this could’ve ended any other way.

(None of them she’ll be able to blame on the alcohol – not nearly as intoxicating as the look he gives her when he slips his hand into her own, potent enough that she forgets that she’s not a touchy person, if only momentarily.)

She doesn’t regret taking him back to her flat, though, the first of many non-regrets. Henry is at a friend’s, Walsh is who knows where, lying to who knows who, and Emma has her back pressed into the wall behind her, Killian’s lips on her neck, his hands at her waist, his whispered nothings – sweet nothings, lecherous nothings, who knows, who cares – murmured into her skin.

Yeah, Emma doesn’t regret that either.

He’s a crazy person who talks of potions and the parents that abandoned her, talks about the latter as though they never did. He’s a crazy person who knows exactly what she wants before she verbalises it, who instinctively knew not stand on ceremony when the door closed behind them, pouncing on her, hand curling around her neck, pulling her to him, pushing her back.

He’s a crazy person and if she’s honest, she kinda likes it.

.

Killian doesn’t think he imagined it. The upward tilt of her lips and the way her eyes had lingered on his, green gaze bright and red rimmed with unshed tears, holding them back and holding his gaze at the edge of the world before he was transported to a new one in a cloud of purple smoke.

Purple smoke now purple liquid in a vial that she still won’t drink from, and Killian finds himself in another world (the one from before), another town, at Emma’s self-proclaimed ‘usual hangout’ - an establishment that’s seen better days and, by the looks of it, would like to go back to them.  

Emma is the same, but different. The Emma he knew wouldn’t frequent the same place twice, but he can’t deny she’d be drawn to one as understated as this. He likes to think he knows her, see, knows her better than she knows herself, and, well, sometimes thinking and knowing are one and the same -

She’s the same, he thinks again, the upward tilt of her lips back then a mirror for the way she smiles now, a small secret thing. But then different; the way she would never have been so bold about what she wanted from him as she is now (except for that one time, a one time kiss), and Killian -

Killian is certain he didn’t imagine it.

Overthinking it, perhaps, thinking he thinks too much and caught up in the bundle of contradictions she makes, _definitely_ , but not imagining things. Not then, not now with her outstretched hand taking him back, taking him home and leading him up the stairs.

And only when you’re aware of doing something can you cease to continue. Ergo, now that he is, he can. Stop, that is. Overthinking things. Let his body take over, give his mind, and perhaps heart (no, never his heart -) a break.

Killian crowds her up against the door, and Emma bares her neck to him before he’s even there, before she even knows she’s done it, probably.

Killian doesn’t need to read the invitation twice; his body takes over, and then he gives her what she wants.

What they both want.

.

Emma wants to be angry at him. She really really really wants to, but mostly she’s just mad at herself for being tempted - even for a moment - to believe that everything he’s told her about her parents was the truth. Because he’s playing her like a finely tuned instrument:

His teeth on her neck and she _keens_.

His lips on the scar above her left breast after he’s pulled the collar of her dress down low enough to expose it, like he somehow knew it would be there, and her head rolls back,

Her hips shift forward,

Her eyes slam _shut_.

Emma is a harp, and he’s playing her like a lullaby, magic and fire in his fingertips and it’s making her brain foggy with desire - thick, but not thick enough, because one undeniable fact still manages to find it’s way through, a live thing that sifts through the rubble and lingering remains of her resolve, gathers them up along with her sobriety and, perhaps, sanity, and raises them high up to the sky, lion king style:

He’s touching her like he knows her.

And if knows her, then he _knew_ her - past tense, _once upon a time_ , a veritable full stop where she really wants there to be a comma, because the past is concrete, fixed, and if his touch is the truth - more: if her response is - then so is everything else. Parents and magical purple potions included.

Emma must be equally as crazy as him because she _wants_ to believe. For now, in fact, with her hands struggling at his belt and then sliding beneath the fabric to take him in hand, she thinks she could, almost; does, even. She feels more than hears the shudder go through him, as his forehead falls to her shoulder and his hand moves from it’s own ministrations to still hers.

He glances up another moment later, breathing heavily, and lust has put a tempest behind his eyes, the blue a darker shade than she’s ever seen them in the few days they’ve known each other. In the few days they’ve known each other, she’s never seen him this speechless either -

“Are you sure?” Emma asks the question on both their minds. His lips draw slowly upwards as he looks at her - _really_ looks.

“Isn’t that my line, love?”

Another moment, another beat, and Emma’s hand starts moving again. “I don’t know,” her voice is little more than a whisper as she leans into him, their mouths touching but not kissing, “is it?” And since she’s dealing only with truths tonight, Emma wants the record to stand that she has no idea what she’s saying; could very well be speaking gibberish.

Killian groans for lack of a response, because Emma’s stolen it from him as she draws his hand up his length, squeezing slightly. But retribution for the theft comes in the form of him pushing his hips into her, comes with his fake hand pressing against the wall on the side of her head, and the real one moving to rest against her neck.

It’s a good thing he doesn’t look at her when he _actually_ comes a few moments later, the tenderness of the way his thumb gently brushes along her chin too much already.

“Emma.” She thinks she hears her name whispered into her collarbone, and there it is again: the shock, first from his touch, and now from the way he says her name, like he knows her -

He _knows you_ ,

_He_ knows _you_ ,

_He knows_ you,

She can no more stop the words from rolling over her like mini tidal waves of truth, Sanford Meisner style, than she can stop him from bodily picking her up before she has time to protest, from depositing her on the bed once he’s made a beeline for her room. He’s a man on a mission, a man intent on ruining her before the night is through.

And Emma has no doubt he will,  if it’s the last thing he does.

.

Are you sure?

Days, weeks, months and years - literal _centuries_ \- flit through his mind like a quick inhale. Emma, though - Emma is the long exhale out. Emma is the lasting thing, because in all that time, Killian’s never been as sure of anything, or anyone, as he is of her.

Telling her this, however, is liable to kill whatever it is between them tonight that neither seem capable of denying. So Killian padlocks and straitjackets those urges to pour his heart out to her, even if they’re plainly obvious; written all over his face and pinned to the inside of his sleeve.

But he is sure of her, yes.

Not just because she takes him in hand before he’s even had a chance to begin ruining her, always besting him, surprising him. _Not just_ because he can feel her lips ghosting along his hair as she makes him unravel against a bloody door, a gesture tender enough that it can only be subconscious, or because when he falls, hard (it’s been a while and Emma’s touch is everything he’s craved for those days, weeks, months and years), she’s there to catch him.

Killian is sure of her, of the laughter that bubbles out of her as her back hits the bed, the easy smile on her lips when he glances up at her from where he is, kneeling between her legs. Her eyes are bright in the darkness, the blush on her cheeks a pink stain on the blue glow of the room and Killian swallows, a rising sense of panic and urgency - the need to commit this moment to memory because he may never be in this position again, with Emma Swan wanting him, _choosing_ him, her thighs spread in anticipation.

He yanks the skirt off, because there's no point pushing it up when it’ll need to be off later. If he's never going to be in this position again, he intends on making it last, making it good for her.

He discovers paradise between her legs not a second later, and he’s sure of her, he is - of her breathy moans, the whispers and whimpers that wash over him, driving him onwards and driving her ever closer to the edge as he curls his tongue into her. He is sure of her, of the way her hand fists in her hair, of the way her back rises and falls, finally bowing completely off the bed. 

Killian is sure of her, because after that he could’ve been received one of two ways - rejection or acceptance -

He could be turned away, shown the door, never to be seen again.

He could be asked to stay.

Killian thought he was over being terrified where it came to Emma Swan, having long since come to terms with the fact that his heart is no longer his own, but the sheer love that threatens to overwhelm him when she instead takes his hand, twining them together and pulling him up, is nothing short of a miracle.

(Just not the miracle he needs.)

.

Emma no longer knows anything. Sex can do that to a person, when it’s good enough. And that was -

She feels upended, turned inside out, thrown into a tornado-approaching hot air balloon with only two strings still holding the entire thing together, only to be spat out the other side of the storm and run into the ground. And, though it’s a cliche, she’s ready to go again.

So. There are more lingering looks. There’s his body rising above hers, and then hers rising above his with those lips on the weak, sweet spot beneath her ear that Walsh never touched, let alone anyone else on her list of _whambamthankyouma’am_ one night stands ( _he knows you, he knows you, he knows you_ ).

There is - there is clinging once it’s over, and he has her in his lap with his arms around her waist. And if Emma thought she was capable of coming down from that herself, maybe she wouldn’t have held onto him just as tightly. But as it is, she needs those last two strings on the basket, needs him - a weakness she’s only prepared to admit to now. 

As it turns out, Emma no longer knows anything because when the sex is good enough, it leaves you feeling good - without room for more sobering thoughts, for the but, the inevitable caveat.

They come later.

Two minutes and twenty three seconds later, and reality sounds like the cliched beeping of an alarm clock as it hits twelve, an alarm that then decides to keep beeping obnoxiously (as they do) until Emma crawls off Ki- crazy guy’s naked body and slams her hand down on it. (Henry must’ve set it during the week sometime as a reminder to stop working.)

He doesn’t even try anything once the room stops ringing with the high-pitched wailing and instead rings with silence. If nothing else (a distraction three mindblowing times over), she’s grateful for that, especially when she lies down and pulls the quilt over herself, leaving the other side drawn back.

Emma’s not sure what she expects, and she’s definitely _not_ touching on what she hopes, which is why Killian leaves her neither glad nor disappointed when he lies down next to her. His breathing is a match for her own, both of them caught in the middle of a tug-o-war between words and silence. Emma knows what side she’s leaning towards, but Killian?

Tentatively, with so much tension in the movement Emma can almost hear him thinking, he slides his arm over her waist.

(Killian surprises her again, on her side.)

It feels good.

No doubt, it’ll feel good tomorrow, too, coming morning time.

(Come morning time, when the vial of purple liquid is still there on her dressing table, when Killian is still a crazy guy who talks of the parents that abandoned her, talks about the latter as though they never did.)


End file.
